


Natasha

by inkvoices



Series: Of Wax And Blood [3]
Category: Hawkeye (Comics), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Choices, Community: be_compromised, Demon AU, Gen, Identity, Names, SHIELD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 18:12:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19256491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkvoices/pseuds/inkvoices
Summary: A demon learns about words and definitions and names.The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name– Confucius





	Natasha

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** demons eat (dead) people, violence, swearing, blood, and words of power.
> 
> **Author Note:** ‘Bigger on the inside’ is from _Doctor Who_ and the Amanda Palmer song based on _Doctor Who_.
> 
> With thanks to CloudAtlas for beta reading!

1.

She takes on human form as Clint finishes setting up a long-distance target at SHIELD’s indoor range. Watches the draw and release of his bow, the play of muscles beneath his skin, and then steps up alongside him, shoulder to shoulder, and raises her gun. A Glock – the kind she is beginning to favour. One, two, three shots, hitting three of the arrows embedded in the heavy-duty target. Feathers fluttering down like a grievance of angels. 

He turns to her with an admiring grin and she feels like preening for this man who sees her as dangerous and likes it. She allows herself the smallest upturn of the corners of her lips.

The way her kind express themselves does not easily translate to physical, human mannerisms. It would be easier, and avoid misunderstandings, if she were to display one state at all times, but she was not made to be unchanging. For now she limits herself to small gestures so that any offence might be proportionate. 

“Hey,” today’s range officer shouts from the weapons locker counter. “Hey! You. Agent. The redhead one.”

She turns her head towards the noise in acknowledgement.

“No live rounds without ear and eye protection. And _signing in_ , damn it.”

“Sorry, Taniki,” Clint calls back, not sounding sorry at all.

Agent Taniki shakes her head at him and pointedly dumps a pair of bright orange ear mufflers, matching her own, and protective glasses on the counter before returning to her book. It has a long title with ‘law and procedure’ in it that usually means reading for requirement rather than enjoyment.

“They’re regulation,” Clint says, amusement laced throughout his words, when she doesn’t move towards the offered equipment.

She shrugs; a wonderfully human gesture.

He doesn’t have to deaden one of his senses to use his weapon, why should she? The human body has little enough sensory input as it is. Just because Deputy Director Hill insists on her learning the scripture of SHIELD does not mean that she has to obey. In fact, she would have thought her nature would speak against that.

“Will you damage yourself if you don’t use them?” Clint asks. 

His face has small crinkles when he’s worried that gather like a storm cloud between his eyebrows. She shakes her head in answer, as otherwise his concern will fester, and this is not a lie. Not if his words are taken to mean permanent damage and the fault is his if he is not specific. When she changes from human form to the other and back she does not include the flaws and damage of any previous version. 

Bow lowered and held loose in one hand, he adds, contemplating her, “Bet you’d be just as a good with a bow as you are with a gun.”

This is true, but that doesn’t mean it is a thing that will be. She appreciates the picture using a bow makes of him, but not for her the swift, silent death. She likes the mechanics of a gun, the mortal engineering of death in her hand, the hard lines, the feel of dirty and deceptive power, and she likes the explosion, the fire at the end. 

“You want to try?” he asks, offering his bow out to her.

This is worth speaking out loud for, to say, “No.”

“Any reason why not?”

She shakes her head. Folds her arms like Hill at her most uncompromising. 

“Okay,” he says easily and walks away to collect the undamaged arrows, the pieces of the destroyed ones, and to reset the target.

He is trying to figure her out. She understands this and she doesn’t mind his way of doing so. He has been helping her to explore the possibilities of her human self by putting different foods in front of her, watching her flick through television channels, singing snatches of songs and pressing headphones into her ears. _Try this, try that_ , working out what she likes, all options possible, and never questioning what she can or can’t, will or won’t, only what she discovers she likes or not and always she can change her mind later.

Others do not present choices like this. Others limit choice to binding binaries. _Could_ and _couldn’t_ , _can_ and _can’t_ , and final. To be capable of something or not, like to be a woman or a man, tall or short, one thing or another until a series of _yes_ and _no_ forms a unique code. It leaves no space to manoeuvre.

It’s hard to articulate, but that, that is borders, boundaries, and defining. That is not all the things she might have inside her to be, but all the things of the outside pressing her in, lines to draw a shape of her. Instead of having all things on offer to choose from it is a narrowing down, a removing of choices and options, to settle and be limited.

She has been confined to the Fourth Level of Hell, she has been trapped in a Circle, she has been caged before and she likely will be again, but never has she _allowed_ it.

Yet the world of humans is one of a you as opposed to an I, of identification by binary definition. A world in which she is assigned labels ‘Agent’ and ‘the redhead one’ even without her permission being sought. Labelled to be addressed and exist. 

“Does my lack of definition concern you?” she says as Clint returns. It doesn’t feel like it does.

“You mean not knowing your name? No,” he confirms. “I figure if you want to tell me then you will. And if you don’t then it’s none of my business.”

Except: “I haven't told you because I do not have one.”

“Oh.” 

He looks away and she wishes she could taste the air properly in this form, so that she could just know what that means without having to figure it out. Meaning without the trappings of words. All this form can scent is sweat and the hot metal of spent bullets.

“Names are a very human thing.”

It is, in the closest human equivalent, a cultural difference. Demons don’t do definitions, names, rarely even words unless dealing with mortals, and already she has had more words tripping off her tongue than her brethren have formed lips around in centuries. Maybe even millennia. 

“Well. You could pick one, if you like,” he offers, easy as offering her his bow.

“Did you choose yours?”

“No.” He rubs the back of his neck with his free hand and his smile is lopsided. “Names are usually given to people when they're kids, by their parents. But you can change your name if you want to and people can have nicknames, things other people call them because of... shared experiences. There are other naming traditions and stuff around the world, but yeah.”

“You did not choose to be Clint. Did you choose to be Hawkeye?”

“Also no.” He plucks an arrow from his quiver and twirls it between his fingers. “That was from when I was in the circus. Kind of stuck.”

“Others named you.” 

She does not like the idea. It itches.

“You can choose,” Clint insists. “People do. If I wanted to I could change my name.”

“Then why have you not?”

He thinks about this for a moment. Slower than usual, he nocks the arrow, sights the target, and releases.

“I guess this is just who I am, my choices and other people's choices that I’ve learned to live with. And speaking of choices,” he says, lines of concern forming on his face once more, “you’ve been human a lot lately. You said you turn human so you can eat, when you’re hungry and there’s nothing you can consume as a demon. Do we need to take more kill missions?”

SHIELD calls them ‘terminations’ and other pretty words. When Clint names things at least he does so honestly.

She shakes her head, her emotions tempered by his concern in a way that should be strange but is becoming strangely familiar.

These are the rules: when in demon form she cannot kill, only influence others to do so and then the remains of the dead are hers to consume. When in human form she can eat as humans eat. Kill as they kill, be as they are. When she is human to all intents and purposes she is human. 

When there is nothing she can consume as a demon then she can become human to eat, but changing from one form to another requires energy, which makes her hungrier and already she is always hungry. Easier to stay in one form for a time.

There are advantages to both. As a demon she can soar, bend the will of those she wishes to her own devices, taste understanding in the air, and the satisfaction and rightness of consuming as a demon is far superior to the closest human equivalent of merely eating. As a human, meat tastes foul when eaten; foul and dead. Other human food is better, still only fuel but passable.

Although ice cream. 

Ice cream is a wonderful sin. And vodka.

And there is something to be said for being able to interact with the mortal world, not just listen and observe, or be used by those in it. She can say ‘no’. And ‘yes’. She can touch. She can try so many new things.

“There are other benefits to being human,” she says.

Clint has already returned to practising, absorbed once again in the rhythm of draw and release, but still she sees him smile and feels an answering thrill.

 

2.

The problem is not just with names. The problem is _words_. Or more specifically her limited history with them. 

Compared to the eons spent in Hell, her few times on Earth have been but fleeting moments and the words contained within consisting mainly of those to Summon her into a circle, Dog Cops, and the SHIELD manual, which do not a broad or contemporary vocabulary make. 

She is a _demon_. Her kind cannot lie, but they can omit, obfuscate, and dodge. Twist meanings of orders to the detriment of the Summoner. Manipulate others to kill and destroy on their behalf. But how is she to do these things without this tool of modern language? And yes, in particular the names and nouns that litter it, said to be definitions and yet so many with many meanings ascribed to them.

Talking with Clint at least becomes easier as she learns his one-person meanings and understandings, and it is easier to stumble with a maker and forgiver of mistakes but she has never enjoyed playing the fool.

The solution to this, she learns, is the Internet.

She finds the best computer room at SHIELD is on the eighth floor, buried in a warren of corridors, classrooms, meeting rooms, and supply closets. It has no windows or viewing panes and is in a Level Two access zone. Level Two is not a high priority area. This means the room only has four older model computers with sticky keyboards that smell like coffee and food grease, a printer that never contains ink, and mismatched chairs on wheels. It also means that the room rarely contains people outside of SHIELD’s main office hours and so at one in the morning is quiet and peaceful. Level Two Agents are no longer Level Ones staying up all hours trying to get ahead, instead they’ve settled in for the long game and work office hours unless SHIELD demands otherwise, and there is nothing here of interest for anyone with a clearance above Level Two. 

She is unsure what Level she herself has been assigned, but Clint has the lowest Level of those who know of her existence and he is a Seven. Logically she should be at least a Seven then, if SHIELD were always to function on logic. In reality some being of mediocre evil has likely made her a lowly Two or Three. (Not a One, not with kills already logged as hers for doing the agency's demon work.) It is therefore best for her to manifest in human form in a Level Two zone, to any avoid notice and alarm.

Here she can log onto a device with her SHIELD account and the vast online world is available for her to search, to try and make sense of humanity. Also she enjoys the many videos of cats.

Tonight though she encounters unexpected company: Agent Sharon Carter, leaning against the wobbly corner desk that’s home to the printer and cradling a steaming mug of coffee in both hands. 

Agent Carter is one of her current trainers in espionage and has chestnut hair today.

In her search for an optimal human form she has observed that too many changes to aspects of appearance, and too often, makes people uncomfortable, however hair is fine. Hair can be changed many times and there are so many shades of flame.

“So,” Sharon says. “I hear you’ve discovered the Internet.”

This is obvious. She fails to understand why people make such statements that do not require a response, but then words are tricky and there are so many ways to become lost in a conversation that maybe humans feel the obvious is a good place to start.

“Fun fact,” Sharon continues, not at all intimidated by the silence, “everything that you access on your SHIELD account is accessible to SHIELD. Including your browser history - that is, the record of all the things you've looked at on the Internet.” She pauses, observing as she sips her coffee. “I mean, I don't want to make your paranoid, but just because you’re in an empty room all alone in the early hours of the morning doesn't mean that no one is watching. Not here. In fact, logging in with that kind of timestamp is more likely to throw up a red flag.”

She considers this as she takes a seat in front of her favoured computer. Surely there is no shame in acquiring knowledge and understanding? 

“Is this about privacy?” she tries, which is a new concept and she's uncertain if and how it applies to herself.

“Not exactly?” Sharon frowns. “More as in if you use a SHIELD account then you don't have any. Not that they can't check up on anyone at anytime, anywhere, but,” she says waving one hand in the air, “you know?”

She does not.

“You watched porn,” Sharon says with a sigh. “On a SHIELD account. For non-work purposes. So here I am, just checking what you were looking for with that. Also to tell you that IT are nosey bastards and you shouldn't give them that kind of ammo.”

“Fucking,” is the answer, which for some reason causes Sharon to have difficulty swallowing her drink. She would be pleased at using a word to provoke, but instead suffers frustration as that was not her intention.

“Right. Okay, well you definitely found - yeah.” Sharon finishes her coffee and abandons the mug next to the printer. “Minor in psychology and you end up being nominated as a Welfare Officer,” she mutters, pulling up a chair from another desk to sit alongside her. The wheels squeak. “If I’d known I would have taken something else. Right. So.” She sighs again and then smiles. “The Internet can be a really useful tool, especially when learning a new language, but like a lot of tools there are safety measures you should take, and as with any intelligence gathering you should remember opinion, bias, and – basically don't believe everything you read on the Internet.”

Then Sharon catches sight of her page of search results for ‘bastard’, which means illegitimate and what are the odds that all of the IT department – 

“Ah.” Sharon clears her throat. “That was an insult. Derogatory language.”

She understands that, has come across it used like that before, but...

“You are fighting with IT? Or you dislike them?”

“I dislike IT help desks,” Sharon says carefully, “but – oh! I see, no, that’s” – she waves a hand around in the air again, as if she can pluck her meaning from the ether; as if it is that easy – “casual insult. Friendly bickering. Banter.”

“Socially acceptable?”

“Depending on the context, yes. I mean, it depends on the social group, how well people know each other, the situation the insult is used in. Like, I might call Divya in IT a bastard to her face because she won't be offended by it, but I wouldn't call Mike one because he would be. And I can call the group of them bastards in fun because none of them would take it personally, but I wouldn't say it, um, viciously or anything because that would be mean. And also they’d do something like make it so everything I send to a printer only comes out of the one in Fury’s office or something.” She grins. “Rumour has it they can do that.”

She wonders how you use words to convey a sense of being overwhelmed without in any way appearing weak. Or with facial expressions, as she is at least becoming more proficient at those.

She attempts a frown.

“Look,” Sharon says, leaning forward, “did you have a list of words you wanted to look up tonight? Or this morning, I guess.”

She does. Sharon defines them as female dog, prostitute, and someone who has sex with their own mother, all insulting dependent on context. She cuts herself off partway through the list, deviating to say, “You know, there's also expressions. Idioms. Like sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Which is bullshit – I mean, it’s wrong. Words, names, they can hurt. I know Ops and some teams can be a bit mouthy – I don't need to know where you’ve been picking this stuff up from – but if you ever want to talk about it you can come to me, okay?”

“Words have power,” she agrees.

“Yeah, well there's the good kind as well. I love you, I forgive you, me too. Don't miss out the good ones.” Sharon yawns, covering it with a hand a moment after her mouth has already expanded. “Sorry, it’s been a long day and coffee can only do so much. Look, I’m gonna give you some extra words for your list, okay?”

Sharon pushes her chair back and steals a piece of paper from the printer to scribble on.

“I’m gonna suggest you take a language and culture class as well, because I think that might help and you’ll get to meet a bunch of other people in the same boat as you. And if you want to look up fucking” – she winks – “and things like that you’ll want to use a non-SHIELD device and Internet connection. You’d need a hell of a high encryption, or to be Tony Stark or something to be entirely private, but with a non-SHIELD account then at least then IT won't be commenting on your tastes in porn. The covert tech team have to be more discreet. Not that SHIELD admit that we have one of those.”

She yawns again, forgoing hiding it behind a hand this time in favour of finishing what she's writing. 

“Right, that’s me done. Don't stay up too late, okay?”

At the top of the list Sharon leaves her with are Sharon’s mobile number and email address followed by: optimist, feminism, competent, hope, and defenestrate.

After that sometimes when they see each other in passing Sharon adds to the list, dropping a word in her ear like passing secret messages in code. ‘Empowerment’ in the lift, ‘bureaucracy’ in the gym, ‘vermilion’ behind her in the canteen lunch queue. Sometimes it’s her asking Sharon to clarify a definition or context when an Internet search is inconclusive.

She thinks this is what ‘having friends’ means.

 

3.

She understands the necessity of keeping her origins and true form a secret. She understands not wanting to know that the previous role of SHIELD’s newest Agent was corralling and taunting humans on the Fourth Level of Hell, even if humanity has devised so many forms of torture outperforming the worst of her kind. She understands already they are wary of her difference.

She does not mean to break them.

It is in the SHIELD contract she signed that she must attend training. And classes, briefs, missions, and more, and she does. The learning is interesting, the demon work is at it always has been, but the training is a waste of her time. Yet she cannot leave. It’s fascinating. She did not sign in blood or cleave her soul, she has not been Summoned or trapped in a circle, she has made no bargain except that she has given her word. She has agreed that she will follow their rules and their orders and all that entails. The only thing holding her here is herself and she does not walk away.

The training is in how to kill, but in learning how to do so they must not kill or cause permanent injury. Fake fighting and she doesn’t see the point. She has never before been asked to limit the damage she can cause.

They break so easily.

Each trainee is partnered with another to fight in a demonstration of their existing skills. There will be a winner and a loser; yet another binary. Winning earns points. This is the measure of success.

When she is in human form then for all intents and purposes she is human. She is no more and no less than her competition, she is just a body against another body, and surely that is fair. If she happens to have chosen a physical form that is healthier and faster than theirs, well, they should take better care of their own form. If her form shoots with greater accuracy, kills with more precision, then they should better hone their skills.

This body is a weapon. Others can choose the same. If they do not then that’s their problem.

Her training partner did not.

She has been told that bones heal and equated that to ‘not permanent injury’. As her partner is removed from the training gym on a stretcher she is forced to reevaluate. 

The other trainees flock around her, keeping a wary distance but firing questions quick like bullets – where did you learn that, where are you from, what’s your primary weapon, what move is that – and she cannot lie, but she does not have to answer.

“Where the fuck did you learn that?” the Trainer demands once the injured is removed.

Is it not obvious, how to break the human body?

She cannot lie and him she must answer, but she is grasping this language and how to manipulate it, tricks like answering questions with a question and this is to be her response, but Clint reaches her first. 

“Bet you don’t remember,” he says, slinging an arm around her shoulders. To the Trainer he jokes, “They start them young in the motherland, Rumlow. Come on, you should know better than to pair her with someone green.”

This is not the first time Clint has lied on her behalf. It is kind of him but also self-serving. He enjoys subverting people’s expectations, their labels and definitions and nearly ordered worlds, or playing into them. She will tell him soon that she no longer needs him to, but not yet.

“You volunteering?” Rumlow sneers.

Clint grins. He is always grinning, teeth bared.

Clint is not so breakable.

People call her the Russian, Barton’s partner, Sharon’s friend. She has become more than You and Agent. It shouldn’t matter, the words, but they do. Closer and closer they hem her in, but it also feels like they’re circling the meaning of her and never quite touching.

 

4.

It was inevitable that things would go wrong. She’s existed for long enough to know that everything does, sooner or later. She still feels cheated that the time is now.

Today she is ‘invisible backup’ as Clint says, accompanying him on his mission in demon form. ‘Tactical advantage’ is the term Deputy Director Hill uses and explains that she is not to interfere unless absolutely necessary.

Clint’s other way of referring to it is, “Well, this is meant to be a solo mission, but they can’t figure out how to stop you from coming with me so they might as well use you, and if they don’t order you _not_ to come with me then you don’t have the chance to refuse and they can say that everything is under control,” but Clint can be long-winded sometimes.

Not now. Now he is winded, a fist to the stomach driving all of the wind and words out of him.

The tallest human has Clint in a headlock, preventing him from curling into the pain. The cowardly one stands back with a gun aimed at Clint’s face. It’s the third that hammers their advantage home into flesh.

Clint claws at the arm around his neck, nails not quite drawing blood, and lashes out with one bare foot, scoring a hit on the one who is generous with his fists. His next strike is to the meat of Clint’s thigh, to the leg he used as a weapon.

There’s a trick to it, Clint has told her, to directing where damage lands. She wonders how many times he has done this. How many times he has directed violence at himself and why he has not learnt to avoid it.

Clint is more comfortable being harmed than harming. Death he will dole out but pain and torment is not his style. She despairs of this attitude towards his own wellbeing.

She bears witness as each blow falls. There is no signal from Clint that allows her to otherwise act and this is not yet the point of ‘absolutely necessary’. As much as she dislikes it, he has weathered worse. She has not before weathered what falls out of their mouths though.

It's just words, labels, nothing more or less than You, Agent, Barton’s partner, the Russian, and yet. They do not draw blood but they reach something under her skin, something that is not flesh, and they irritate, each syllable a mosquito bite or insect sting. 

Asshole. Cocksucker. Motherfucker.

Those are not Clint’s name.

The headlock one finally releases him and Clint slumps to the floor, head lolling forwards, a giving in that he does not give up so easily. She thinks now they will leave, now he is beaten, and one does move towards the open door, but the one with the gun and the one with the bloody knuckles turn back to admire their handiwork and begin again.

They secure his wrists and bind them to the wall above his head, like meat on a hook.

He doesn’t move. Hangs limp. 

“Not so fucking funny now, are you bitch?” they whisper in his ear and she does not need a signal. Freedom means being able to choose only to obey herself.

Here is the rule of her demon form: she cannot kill, only influence others to kill for her. She whispers to the man with the gun, another in the corridor, one here owes another money, one was beaten to a promotion and believes it unfair; strings she can pull, minds she can nudge. She ploughs through their base and in her wake they turn on each other.

Then she turns herself. She is one thing then another; she is death deliverer and then she is death delivered.

Here is the rule of her human form: when she is human she is human. 

She hits the one who dared to touch her partner. Ruins his mouth to stop his bleating and punches his nose into his brain to silence him for good. Blood coats her own knuckles and spatters warm across her face. She licks her lips and tastes iron.

She is rage and wrath, swift and sharp; she rends and tears and destroys. 

She is never more monstrous than when she is human. Demons are merely what they were made to be.

She returns to Clint covered in gore and pauses for a moment, that he might turn away. When she has been wrath before she has been unseen, the nightmare in the shadows, and here she is, and here he can see. For a moment she finds herself concerned at what she is in another’s eyes, especially this human’s eyes, but she will not be cowed by feelings.

Clint is quiet and still, and she never likes him as this. Pale with beads of sweat on his skin. Head hanging down like an animal beaten. He comes to consciousness slowly, lifts his head heavy on his neck, and smiles at her with lips cracked and oozing.

“Well,” he says. “This looks bad.”

His words bleed into each other.

She has seen before what humans are capable of doing to their own kind and she has done worse herself, but it has happened now and to Clint and this is different, is wrong.

Her hands are slick with blood as she removes his bonds, her uniform dark with it, and still he reaches for her as he stumbles. Bracing himself with one hand on her shoulder, the other catching at her hip. She takes hold of it and laces their fingers together, a binding of a different sort. Her skin is hot and sticky, his beneath hers cold and clammy but his pulse beats strong.

“You’re kind of a mess,” he slurs.

“I have not created such slaughter for a long time,” she informs him, the best reassurance she has to offer.

“Aww, y’didn’t leave any f’me?” he asks, his smile a slash of white teeth in his face and he means it. He means it. He means it and his grip on her shoulder tightens, holding on. “Feelin’ kinda angry myself, y’know?”

She has watched Clint do demon’s work, but from a distance and only once in close quarters. She likes the thought of Clint hunting with her and painted in her colours. She had not known that about herself. 

“They hurt you.” She doesn’t mean to say it, but it slithers out. Traitorous words; so difficult to grasp when she wants to use them and yet so easily do the ones she does not wish to say escape her control.

“They hurt you too,” he says solemnly. She wonders how he can see such minor injuries, but his hand leaves her shoulder so he can tap the tip of her nose with one finger, a child’s gesture but his face is serious. “On the inside,” he says, “they hurt you on the inside.”

She had not been aware that she had an inside. She is demon, she is human, she is the form she takes, but is she not? Is she something that is neither and both and solely her? Perhaps. She does like watching Dog Cops whichever form she takes, if liking is the indication of self that Clint seems to think it is.

“It is possible that some remain between us and the exit,” she offers.

Clint grins.

“Well then.”

She finds him a gun. They find their way to the exit. They leave fire in their wake. 

She hears later that the extraction team dispatched by Operational Command, concerned by a lack of communication and the explosions, were disturbed by what they found. She hears that they refuse any future extraction for Strike Team Delta. She hears and she does not care; their opinions do not matter.

 

5.

She remains human to sit in a cold plastic chair by Clint’s side when he is out of surgery, waiting for him to wake. In her lap a book of baby names and their meanings. Medical staff have glanced from that to her, to Clint, and to entirely the wrong conclusion much to her amusement and she will not correct them. The rumour mill is fun to feed.

She has a phone that Sharon helped her to buy with access to the Internet and its whole world of names, but this is more satisfying. Armed with a marker pen she can strike out the names she does not want, what she is not, until she can come as close in a word to who she is as can be done.

Words describe the shape of a thing, but not the thing itself. A signpost. A signifier. They have power, to make things fit into definitions, into neatly labelled boxes, because words are as dangerous as demons have always known. But words do not have to mean limitation. They can be twisted and manipulated, yes, but even that aside there is space within the box. There are possibilities. Whatever labels people are given, they will be always also be what they are on the inside. 

And then there are the labels that can be chosen.

When Clint cracks open his eyelids and reaches for her free hand she gives it to him, lets him leach her warmth as crazed as he is for craving the heat of hell. She likes to feel the blood flowing under his skin. The beep of the heart monitor is reassuring, but this is better.

“Can’t ‘member – ” he starts, voice arid. She releases the marker in her other hand in order to pass him a glass of water with a straw. He sips, clears his throat, and tries again. “Thanks. I can’t remember the ride back. We get an extraction?” 

“No.” She removes the glass before he can spill, placing it within his reach. “They were late.”

“Boom,” Clint agrees with a smile. “You were _amazing_.”

She watches him with narrowed eyes.

“You are on drugs again.”

“Probably. The good shit. Doesn’t mean it’s not true though.”

She considers him, drugs and all.

“I do not have limits,” she tells him. The words are a little easier to wrangle into place when he’s too worn out to confuse her by interjecting and when she’s had the time to muster them in hopefully the right manner. “I am not defined by edges. I am not human, Clint. What I am, we are not defined. We do not exist between lines or in the curve of letters.”

“’Kay.”

“If I am to be defined, it will be by what I choose to do. Not what I can or cannot do, because I could do everything if I wanted to. Do you understand?”

“Uh-huh.”

She turns the page and reaches the Ns.

“What’re you doin’?” Clint asks, eyelids sleepily sliding shut. 

“Choosing a name.”


End file.
